I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. -Quote from Walden chapter I

The happiest people are those who march to their own drums. In Economy, the first chapter in Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, Thoreau speaks to the true way in which happiness is acquired and maintained. Thoreau observed society throughout his time in Concord, but he payed closest attention to the things that make people happy. He states how although people are fundamentally different, the same things make them happy. One basic principal that makes one happy is their choice of being who they are, and doing what they want, and not conforming to what others want to see from them just to fit in. Henry David Thoreau was a man who spoke his true feelings. He stated his thoughts clearly and concisely, and with conviction. In his time in Concord, during the mid 1800's, Thoreau built a small log cabin next to Walden Pond, on the outskirts of what was Concord center, and observed society from the outside. Through being an observationist, he was able to examine how people live their lives, and his and other's feelings were very evident with him:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.-An excerpt from Walden Page 38

Thoreau declares an individual as someone who follows what their heart endeavors; he knows that people are going to dislike him and his writing for its brutalness and harshness; and he choses to write in this style anyways because it is what makes him happy. This is what made him such a wise man. He saw what he saw, and wrote about that, as opposed to being influenced by others. In the end, it doesn't matter what others think of you, it doesn't matter if you do not fit in, and it doesn't matter if others are happy with who you are, it only matters if you are happy with yourself.